Barnum Museum sets workshop on 'inventive play'

Phyllis A.S. Boros

Published 3:45 pm, Tuesday, July 8, 2014

"Lost and Found Circus: A Creative Balancing Act" by Bridgeport artist Susan Tabachnick, runs at the Barnum Museum through Aug. 30. All her works are untitled. On Wednesday, July 16, she will lead an afternoon "Inventive Play" workshop for adults and children who want to create their own sculpture with "found" stuff.
Photo: Contributed Photo

"Lost and Found Circus: A Creative Balancing Act" by Bridgeport...

"Lost and Found Circus: A Creative Balancing Act" by Bridgeport artist Susan Tabachnick, runs at the Barnum Museum through Aug. 30. All her works are untitled. On Wednesday, July 16, she will lead an afternoon "Inventive Play" workshop for adults and children who want to create their own sculpture with "found" stuff.
Photo: Contributed Photo

"Lost and Found Circus: A Creative Balancing Act" by Bridgeport...

"Lost and Found Circus: A Creative Balancing Act" by Bridgeport artist Susan Tabachnick, runs at the Barnum Museum through Aug. 30. All her works are untitled. On Wednesday, July 16, she will lead an afternoon "Inventive Play" workshop for adults and children who want to create their own sculpture with "found" stuff.
Photo: Contributed Photo

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Turning junk into an interesting piece of sculpture can be an activity that engages children and adults alike.

That is the philosophy of the Barnum Museum's artist-in-residence, Susan Tabachnick, who will lead "Inventive Play," an afternoon workshop Wednesday, July 16, for ages 8 and older.

Tabachnick, of Bridgeport, said participants will create small sculptures with "found" objects, which the museum will supply. However, participants who bring their own scraps of metal, wood or ceramic will be able to take home their projects.

About 50 of Tabachnick's sculptures are on view through Saturday, Aug. 30, in "Lost and Found Circus: A Creative Balancing Act" at the Bridgeport museum. The artist specializes in creating sculptural works from items she has discovered at tag sales, in junk piles and even on sidewalks.

She said it's the type of stuff that clutters garages, attics, basements and garden sheds -- such as parts of old appliances, machines, motors, tools and hundreds of other doodads.

She takes these items and fashions them in a new way, so that they have a new life, she said, with each piece relying on "fit or balance" to achieve a particular look.

"I'm always surprised when people say: `I'm not creative.' As if you must go to college or have a degree in order to have some imagination," she said, laughing.

She pointed out that if one can play the old-fashioned game of pick-up sticks, which requires a sense of balance and intuition, then creating found art is possible.

"I allow the pieces to lead me along the way -- to play with the pieces until I find something that I like. If you do that, you can't lose. And suddenly you realize: `I can do this.' "

Tabachnick's fascination with found art came about in 2006, following a 25-year career in marketing with Reed Exhibitions, of Norwalk, one of world's largest trade and consumer events-planning organizers. One day, while out for a walk with her dog, she came across a round metal flange on the path. Something about it caught her eye; she picked it up, brought it home and began a second career as an artist.

At Wednesday's workshop, visitors will be able to view Tabachnick's "circus" -- since the works are more suggestive than literal, viewers are free to interpret pieces as they wish -- from circus trains, clowns to acrobats and parade floats.

The artist said she "never intended to make a circus."

"Often the pieces came together serendipitously, each with its own eccentric personality, not unlike that of traditional circus characters. The circus theme percolated as I continued to make sculptures."

Her great circus memories have come from growing up in Bridgeport, she said.

"To me, the most important part of the circus is the experience of its arrival, with the anticipation of a parade of circus wagons coming down the street" as it proceeded, in those days, to the big top at Seaside Park."

And since none of the parts are permanently affixed, it also reminds her of "a real circus -- the assemblages can readily be taken apart and transported to a new venue, and if I choose, the individual parts can come together in new ways."

Wednesday's participants are encouraged to bring a lot of imagination to the workshop, she said, as kids and adults alike will use found objects to "rejuvenate our ability to see new possibilities" from piles of old stuff.